Image Shanghai Trial Experiment Photography More Than 30 Thousand People Watch The Exhibition "Pyramid"

At the end of September, the sixth image Shanghai Art Fair (hereinafter referred to as image Shanghai) once again landed at the Shanghai Exhibition Center, and 50 galleries were exhibiting. Thousands of pieces of 200 artists appeared, attracting more than 30 thousand spectators.

The key to this exhibition is to continue to explore the boundaries of photography and dig deep into the potential of Chinese cities. The exhibition is not limited to the frame of photo and video. Photography and behavior art, painting, installation and so on have their own crossover and more experimental temperament. Meanwhile, with the gradual maturity of Shanghai's photographic art ecology, in addition to the September art fair, the organizers also plan to hold photographic activities throughout China throughout the year.

The secret of Pyramid's structure

What role does the image play in shaping the history? How does the form and mode of photography change? With this doubt, Xie Qing, deputy director of Parasite art space in Hongkong, was commissioned by the sixth video art exhibition in Shanghai to produce a photo exhibition "field work" for the "insight" section of the exhibition. The Japanese bird community symbolizing shinism intervened in the history and culture of other countries and integrated into the environment which should have been out of place. Through a single image, the role of photography in the preparation of new history is becoming clearer. "Field work" will open a door for the audience to understand photography and go through the "door" and enter the sixth image Shanghai Art Fair composed of 50 galleries, 200 artists and thousands of works.

After landing in Shanghai for six years, the image of Shanghai has witnessed the gradual growth of photographic art as an important part of the city's art ecology. "When we just started, there were no special photographic galleries in Shanghai, and now there are quite a few." Georgia Griffiths, director of Image Art Expo Group, told me that the scale of the exhibition has gradually stabilized in recent years. The gallery has remained at about 50, and the audience flow has been maintained at 25 thousand to 30 thousand people.

Georgia describes the huge audience of tens of thousands of people as the Pyramid structure. "The top few are the top collectors, such as Wang Jinyuan, Qiao Zhibing, Lu search, etc." buyers are below, they are very interesting groups, because the price of many photographic works is relatively easy to accept, and thousands of them can be bought, and they are likely to buy their first art works here, opening up investment. These people usually buy one or two works at a time, but they haven't formed a collection system yet; the largest number of Pyramid's bottom is, of course, ordinary viewers. How can we turn audiences into buyers? How can we turn buyers into collectors? Georgia said that every year the exhibition will hold a collector's special exhibition to let you know how to build professional collections, and the dialogues held at the same time will popularize photography collection knowledge to the audience.

This year's "collector's special exhibition" section selected a batch of works from the collection of University of Salford's art collection, and launched the exhibition "far sighted". Guo Ying, the curator, said that University of Salford was very avantgarde in collecting consciousness, and dared to collect several pieces of art works that were not so popular among the market. It included the Mishka Henner high resolution satellite image composite imaging, Liam Young's first static photography of the first full laser scanning technology film, and the concept work of the Luke Ching with pinhole cameras.

Looking at China and promoting the development of local art ecology

With the gradual maturity of Shanghai's photographic art ecology, the image of Shanghai has also opened its eyes to Pyramid's vast national market from tens of thousands of people. Georgia said that the exhibition has always supported the development of China's local photography art ecology, and the next goal is to organize photography activities in all the cities with great potential for development in China. "For example, Chengdu is a city with great potential, and there are thousands of highlands such excellent art institutions." In fact, at this exhibition, there are already many traces of non popular art cities. There are galleries in Urumqi, Zhengzhou, Lanzhou and Taiwan.

The Gao Tai Contemporary Art Center from Urumqi has just been set up this year for the first time to participate in the art fair. The chief actress told the author: "the image of Shanghai has been held for the sixth time and is a very international platform. As a gallery far away in Xinjiang, we really hope to share some stories with local artists, including the creation of Xinjiang's foreign exchange. Many photographers are attracted by the unique natural and cultural features of Xinjiang. They fly to Xinjiang from around the world every year. But this time we mainly bring the works of local artists in Xinjiang, and their shooting angles are different. He further indicated that the local photography market in Xinjiang is still at a very early stage, which is not mature enough and needs more support from the collectors and galleries.

Implementing the spirit of experiment and exploring the boundary of photography

Image Shanghai has been exploring the boundaries of photography and releasing it from traditional definitions. This exhibition especially emphasizes the experimental characteristics of photographic art.

Acting as the "mother of behavior art", Marina Abramovic's work is still the first time to participate in the image Shanghai. Gladys Lin, Asia director, told the author that in fact, the organizers of the exhibition wanted to bring Marina Abramovic's master artists to bring works, and the two sides began to communicate and cooperate with each other since last year.

Finally, the exhibition's "focus" section shows the artist's famous "lovers" series, which is the first complete exhibition of the series in mainland China. According to the exhibition, in 1988, Marina Abramovic and the then lover and art partner Uli opened the project of "lovers". Both sides started from the ends of the Great Wall and walked toward each other along the Great Wall until they met in the middle. Originally planning for this three month performance art project, Abramovich and Wu Lei originally planned to get married at the meeting place. But when the journey started, their relationship deteriorated. Instead, they broke up at the meeting and formally said goodbye to the two sides in their feelings and work. In addition to presenting 10 color photographs of the performance, the exhibition also invited Abramovich to create new paintings for each photo, and to talk with Sean Kelly, director of the art gallery of Shang Keli, for the simultaneous display of the pictures and the video.

Gladys said: "photography has been developing for hundreds of years to date, and there are many different possibilities. We hope to bring new experience and new cognition to photography." In addition to exploring the intersection of photography and behavioral art in the "lover" series, the Shang Kelly gallery also brings the young artist Wu Ji, "cyanantha collection" series, which integrates cyanogen photography principles and collage techniques to construct the artistic conception of Chinese landscape painting.

In addition, Ji Yong's Apocalypse series brought by M art space blended western classical painting elements and new media art. The evergreen Gallery brought Leandro Ehrlich's "Twelve series of animals and animals" series with super transparent glass and LED lamps to attract many spectators to stop. The Johannes Wohnseifer "Polaroid" series of paintings in the "presence" section challenged the function of photography with painting. From the general public forum to the gallery of the main unit, the spirit of experiment is carried out.